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Course Criteria
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3.00 Credits
Through an interdisciplinary approach that includes literary, historical and sociological methods, the course examines the history of Christian mysticism and the selected writings of mystics from diverse Christian traditions. We will explore the social and religious contexts in which these mystics speak, write and act; their impact on social, religious and political movements; and how perceptions of gender, race and power legitimate or delegitimate their claims of mystic knowledge. The course will highlight specific themes, issues and concepts such as religious practice, ritual, mystical itinerary, monasticism, disease and distress, deification, healing, asceticism, art, music, dance, ecology and the role of the body.
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3.00 Credits
This seminar explores relations among religion, horror, and the monstrous in ancient scripture and contemporary horror. Course readings, discussions, and research projects approach the subject from two distinct but related directions: first, a focus on elements of horror and the monstrous in biblical and related ancient mythic and ritual texts; second, an examination of religious dimensions in the modern horror, especially as found in representations of monstrosity in literature and film. Offered as RLGN 345 and RLGN 445. Prereq: RLGN 102.
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3.00 Credits
This course studies religious beliefs and rituals from a biocultural perspective. A biocultural approach to religion is based on the idea that human religiosity is informed by both our evolutionary biological makeup and by our ability to construct culture to adapt to variable social worlds and environments. According to a biocultural view, humans are biologically constrained but have the cultural capacity to adapt to the world in a variety of ways. Thus, a biocultural approach to religion asserts that biology and culture operate in tandem and that both biological and cultural insights are required in order to understand and explain religious beliefs and practices. This course explores these assumptions and examines them against specific religious data. This course introduces students to major ideas, concepts, and questions that motivate biocultural approaches to religion. The course requires students to apply course material to a final research project that explores particular religious beliefs and/or practices in terms of the intersection of cultural choices and biological constraints. Students will present their research findings to the class. Students who take this course under the COGS designation are expected to engage substantively with the contemporary scientific study of the human mind in their research project and other course work. Offered as RLGN 349, RLGN 449 and COGS 349.
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3.00 Credits
An exploration of Jewish moral and ethical discourse. The first half of the course will be devoted to studying the structure and content of classical Jewish ethics on issues including marriage, abortion, euthanasia, and social justice. Students will read and react to primary Jewish religious texts. The second half of the course will focus on various modern forms of Judaism and the diversity of moral rhetoric in the Jewish community today. Readings will include such modern thinkers as Martin Buber and Abraham Joshua Heschel. Offered as JDST 350, RLGN 350, and RLGN 450.
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3.00 Credits
This course utilizes theoretical approaches found in cognitive semantics -- a branch of cognitive linguistics -- to study the conceptual structures and meanings of religious language. Cognitive semantics, guided by the notion that conceptual structures are embodied, examines the relationship between conceptual systems and the construction of meaning. We consider such ideas as conceptual metaphor theory, conceptual blending, Image schemas, cross-domain mappings, metonymy, mental spaces, and idealized cognitive models. We apply these ideas to selected Christian, Buddhist, and Chinese religious texts in order to understand ways in which religious language categorizes and conceptualizes the world. We examine both the universality of cognitive linguistic processes and the culturally specific metaphors, conceptual blends, image schemas, and other cognitive operations that particular texts and traditions utilize. Offered as RLGN 352, RLGN 452, COGS 352 and COGS 452.
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3.00 Credits
This course examines the social and political status of Jews under Muslim and Christian rule since the Middle Ages. Themes include interfaith relations, Islamic and Christian beliefs regarding the Jews, Muslim and Christian regulation of Jewry, and the Jewish response. Offered as HSTY 371, JDST 371 and RLGN 371.
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3.00 Credits
Explores the development of the diverse traditions of Christianity in the Roman Empire from the first through the fourth centuries C.E. A variety of New Testament and extra-Biblical sources are examined in translation. Emphasis is placed on the place of Christianity in the larger Roman society, and the variety of early Christian ideals of salvation, the Church, and Church leadership. Offered as HSTY 303 and RLGN 373.
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3.00 Credits
Origins and development of Protestantism, the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and the interaction between secular power and religious identity in Christian Europe. Offered as HSTY 309 and RLGN 374.
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3.00 Credits
Critical assessment of selected topics of historical or current interest. Project must be accepted by a member of the department faculty prior to registration. Offered as RLGN 388 and RLGN 488.
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1.00 - 3.00 Credits
Up to three semester hours of independent study may be taken in a single semester. Must have prior approval of faculty member directing the project.
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